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It was less than fortuitous, Elliott would later reflect, to have found the most beautiful place in the Cindersap to sit and think and then find himself rudely interrupted by violent marauders. He hadn't intended to wander this far into the woods, of course. Thoroughly absorbed in developing a character detail for his manuscript and enjoying the balmy twilight of midsummer, he had stumbled over a fallen log into a tableau that would have put any poet with emotions to tears.
Admittedly, he had shed a few at its quiet splendor: lush-leafed hedges dotted with clusters of glossy red fruit, weathered marble that had fallen over at angles like books on a shelf, moss-covered stumps teeming with fungus, and a delicate, thread-like waterfall feeding into a small pond below. Elliott sat at the edge of the pond, looking around himself in wonder. In such a place as this, even the very air seemed to sparkle with its own magic, filled with the earthy smell of loam and the ferns that crept beneath the hedge foliage, delicate leaves unfurling forever from their coiled spirals.
Something cold and horrifyingly damp attacked his ankle. He glanced down and what he saw was decidedly more Class Jell-O than Class Mammalia. A mucus-green, angry blob of something reared back (defying its lack of observable limbs) and rammed into him again, hard enough to bruise.
“I beg your pardon?” he said, stumbling to his feet. He took a step away from the pond and his foot squished in a manner that altogether unsettled his stomach. The other slimy something he’d had the misfortune to step on gave the tiniest, smallest little screech and then the onslaught began. It was akin to being mobbed by succulent-toned water balloons, that is to say, if water balloons had teeth.
Somewhere between ripping his favorite jacket and losing an Oxford, Elliott realized he was in serious trouble. Normally, he stayed near enough townsfolk to pull himself out of misfortune if need be, but there was nary a human nor humanoid adventurer in sight. The solitude that had initially delighted him now became his doom. As he was slowly backed against a statue of a solemn-looking old man by a horde of gelatinous monsters, he concluded that this was rather not the way he ever intended to die, especially with his manuscript still lacking a proper muse (let alone a plot, ending, and publisher).
Point being, the stakes for Elliott’s future legacy were dire.
He pulled on four years of secondary-school voice projection via les comédies musicales. “HELP! ANYONE??? SAVE OUR SOULS, or rather, my soul, specifically but—AHHHHH!” One of the nefarious creatures had latched onto a knee. Elliott fended them off with his hands as best as he could, but he was hardly trained for attacks of the supernatural.
The clearing lit up with an eye-watering violet-white flash of lightning. As soon as Elliott recovered the powers of vision, he saw a cloaked man in a dark hat striding towards the monsters, loudly chanting in a language Elliott couldn’t quite parse. The man hurled the horrible things aside as if they were no more than raindrops. His eyes glowed with a strange light and Elliott was transfixed to the spot by this glorious savior.
I daresay I’ve found my muse, was the last thing he thought before he (quite understandably) lost consciousness.
Elliott awoke to some brute forcing a nastyawful drink down his throat, pinching his nose and holding his mouth and whatnot, like an ailing kitten. He gagged and sputtered, but eventually swallowed, the taste of raw mushrooms lingering in his mouth. Weakly flailing, he hit a solid body, which was enough of a jolt to make him open his eyes.
His savior sat on a chair beside the bed, his darkly berobed arms crossed. “Good. You’ll probably live.”
“What in the blazes did you give me?” Elliott wheezed, pushing himself up into a sitting position. He took advantage of this improved angle to examine the strange and supernatural man. (Although, he wasn’t sure if he could be called a man, despite being man-shaped. Elliott’s favorite fantasy books could be very particular on that point.) At any rate, his savior-and-possible-poisoner appeared to be in his mid-fifties, by Elliott’s estimation, and possessed an impressively tangled mane of purple hair with a goatee that hid most of his stern face. Thick eyebrows all but covered intensely clever eyes, and a prominent nose kept him from concealing his distinctive face beneath that wide-brimmed hat, trimmed in amethyst and faceted with a golden rune.
“A healing potion,” the man (sorcerer? wizard?) said, looking at Elliott like he was an unwelcome mail order delivery who had been abandoned on his doorstep. “And since you can clearly move yourself without further assistance, you can collect your discarded belongings by the door on your way out.”
Elliott blinked. “I’m terribly sorry, but I haven’t the faintest idea of who you are nor where I am and now you are telling me to go?” He glanced down at himself, noticing that he wasn’t wearing the same clothes he had worn during his introduction to the less-friendly local fauna. A black silk bathrobe draped his shoulders, loose enough that he strongly suspected that it fit his sturdier rescuer much better. He flushed, the knowledge sinking in that he had been changed, washed, and put to bed by an intriguing and altogether strikingly handsome stranger. To be so easily turned out by the same stranger without so much as a cup of tea, well, it rankled him.
“Always with the questions, you townsfolk!” the man huffed. It was a huff full of long-suffering. “I am Magnus Rasmodius, wizard of Stardew Valley, and you are in my tower. Yes, I am magical, yes, magic is real, no, I will not demonstrate like a trick pony, yes, I am very busy, and yes, I am a benevolent force against evil and yes, you are free to go and I do not intend to trap you in here with me. Will that suffice?”
Moving gingerly, Elliott set his bare feet on the cold slate tile and gripped the headboard’s finials until he felt less wobbly. He adjusted the robe with his free hand. “Your answers sound rather rehearsed, but are adequate. Do you host house guests often?”
“‘Rehearsed,’” Rasmodius echoed, nose wrinkling. “I am simply efficient with my time.” He glided towards the bedroom door in a whirl of robes. “And no, I would much prefer my own company, but my vows obligate me to protect and defend the weak and helpless, meaning certain meddling farmers and now you, apparently.”
Elliott trailed him, his thoughts full of all sorts of engrossing ideas about magic, muses, and monsters to feel offense about a blunt statement on his human frailty. He was so preoccupied that he fully ran into Rasmodius, who caught him by the waist before his momentum could swing his head into the frame. The borrowed robe promptly lost half its battle against gravity.
“Er,” said Rasmodius, who was now staring at Elliott’s bare chest with unbridled shock, embarrassment pinking his cheeks.
“Um,” responded Elliott, idly fascinated by the proximity of Rasmodius’s beard to his nipples, which had pebbled in the cold tower air. Would his beard feel rough and scratchy or soft with beard oil? And was all of his hair that astonishing crocus shade of purple or—
Seemingly a tad dazed, Rasmodius stepped away from Elliott and cleared his throat. “Your clothing and belongings are this way.”
Elliott blinked and followed, the moment broken but his thoughts still spinning in Rasmodius’s strange gravity. There was just something he couldn’t put his finger on about the wizard, to react so oddly after presumably changing Elliott out of his ruined clothing! Perhaps he had used magic to move and clean Elliott’s body, or else why react like a blushing maiden? Elliott knew he was an attractive man (by convention, at least), but Rasmodius didn’t exactly seem the type to take an interest in erstwhile failed authors.
Could wizards even find humans appealing?
He changed into his clean-yet-bedraggled attire. The door to the tower shut behind him without so much as a “goodbye”, and that was that.
Or so he thought.
Elliott outlined and wrote the first five chapters of a new manuscript within the span of a single week, barely pausing to fish with Willy in the mornings or grab a bite to eat with Leah at the Stardrop. Like a man possessed, his pen scratched through sheet after sheet of paper, reworking characters, drawing connections within the narrative that he hadn’t previously considered. And if one character in particular bore some resemblance to a certain grouchy old wizard in the tower, then what of it?
The second week brought this spate of enthusiastic writing to a screeching halt. After the second day of wringing his hands and fruitlessly wandering the beach, he felt briefly tempted by the beautiful clearing with the slimes. He chose the tower instead.
The wizard didn’t appear until his fifth round of knocking, looking deeply harassed and more than a little bit peeved. “What is it now?” he said in lieu of greeting.
“Oh, uh.” Elliott hadn’t thought this far. Perhaps this proximity to the wizard would be enough to spark the words itching in his fingers? One peek at Rasmodius’s glower proved this wouldn’t be so. “Right, so. I was hoping I might borrow a book or two from your library? For my writing research? Because the town’s library is rather sparse, if you didn’t know about the last curator displacing everything and—”
“Fine,” agreed Rasmodius, and they both experienced a brief moment of shock: Elliott at the wizard accepting his simple ruse outright and the wizard at himself, for agreeing to let him back inside. “But I’ll show you the books you are allowed to borrow and if you touch anything else or fail to return them or even worse, dog-ear them, I will turn you into a toad.”
“Can you really do that?” Elliott asked eagerly, following him down a vine-covered stairwell to the tower basement.
Rasmodius waved a hand dismissively. “I learned how to do it by the age of ten. It’s a Ministry standard.”
Elliott buzzed with questions—about his magic and backstory and what made the man so dour about magic of all things, but wisely kept his mouth shut. He couldn’t help but let out a little gasp at the wizard’s library. Towering shelves from floor to ceiling were filled with books of every color and size, from ancient crumbling tomes to newer paperbacks barely the size of his palm. Even more interesting were the sparkling stones and trinkets decorating the shelves, but he suspected the wizard would sooner lop off his hands before allowing him to take a closer look, and Elliott rather liked his hands.
“Take your pick of these,” Rasmodius said, indicating a smaller shelf of books with disappointingly dull covers. These ones, Elliott strongly suspected, were probably catalogued by the wizard as “idiot-proof for feeble idiots who can’t defend themselves against slimes” or something, nary a proper spell nor curse in sight. But still! To borrow a book from a wizard’s library was no simple achievement, so he selected one at random and smiled.
“It’s perfect,” he said, clutching the book to his chest. While he couldn’t be sure, Elliott had the distinct feeling that Rasmodius was flustered.
“Right. Now, if that’s all…?”
“No, no, all I needed was a book, truly,” Elliott lied. He let himself out this time, and was halfway to the beach before he thought to actually take a look at what he had borrowed. 101 Monsters and How to Prevent Them, read the embroidered cover. He chuckled, and was even more delighted to see highlights and notes in (he assumed) Rasmodius’s neat lettering scrawled on almost every page, including arguments with the author.
Elliott wrote four more chapters before he found himself back at the tower, another flimsy excuse about research on his tongue. Rasmodius directed him towards the books before he could even ask, simply nodding at the basement stairwell and sternly reminding him with a growl of, “Only those books!” as the writer descended into the library.
The wizard seemed distracted that day on something requiring a potion, ever so focused that he didn’t even notice Elliott pausing to watch him work from the entryway to his (kitchen? lair? workshop?) well, whatever the proper term was for wherever a wizard worked. He would have to ask for specific details before he edited his manuscript, at any rate.
Allowing himself another moment to watch Rasmodius as he carefully chopped herbs and chanted spells in that same magic language over a glowing cauldron, Elliott committed the sight to memory and turned away before he was spotted. Rasmodius truly had beautiful eyes, like amethysts set alight when they glowed during his careful spellwork. This time, The Grand Sorcerer and His Witchly Bride was tucked under Elliott’s arm.
(He learned a great deal from reading that book’s margins than he probably should have.)
When Elliott returned to the tower, he didn’t even knock. To maintain his pretext, he swapped books again, selecting a new one on magical herbs. The wizard remained intent on his spellwork when Elliott joined him in the workshop, the latter settling in to read a safe distance from the table where Rasmodius, in full wizard regalia, muttered over scrolls covered in glowing runes. He had abandoned his usual hat, his tangled knots of hair looking even worse than they had when Elliott had last appreciated them up close. He longed to comb his fingers through them, except that he had a sneaking suspicion that doing so came with the potential loss of fingers.
But that didn’t mean Elliott couldn’t tease.
After finishing the first section of the book, he politely coughed. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Rasmodius jump a good foot in the air and float back to the floor. Elliott hid a smile and adjusted his reading glasses, noting the way Rasmodius’s eyes tracked the movement.
“Wha—How did you get in here?” Rasmodius sputtered, stopping three feet from the corner where Elliott had languidly stretched his legs.
“The usual method, I presume,” Elliott said, licking a finger to flip to another page.
“But my property is warded. It shouldn’t have been possible for you to sneak in without my invitation.” The wizard was turning a delightful shade of puce. (Oh yes, this was just the ticket for Elliott’s character inspiration.)
Elliott shrugged casually. “Maybe you left me a standing invite?”
“Perhaps,” Rasmodius allowed. He squinted at Elliott. “Unless you neglected to tell me that you yourself are magical.”
Now there was an interesting idea. Elliott had simply assumed Rasmodius left the door unlocked, much like the rest of the town, but perhaps he had neglected to rescind Elliott’s library invitation after the last time. “Only magical in words and the service of Venus, last I checked,” he said dryly, raising a brow.
Rasmodius harrumphed, a blush rising blotchily on his cheeks. “Well. Anyway, it’s doubtful the Ministry would have overlooked you by your age as it is. However, I don’t need townsfolk snooping on my work nor bothering me. So if you wouldn’t mind…?” He gestured rather forcefully in the direction of the door.
Sighing dramatically, Elliott ran a hand through his hair and pushed himself up. “If you insist, my darling wizard. But dare I say that we worked together in peaceful silence for the better part of an hour before you disrupted it. I swear on my own honor that I would be far less of a bother than the usual townsfolk.” He flashed Rasmodius his most charming smile.
The wizard raised one bushy eyebrow and grumbled something that sounded a bit like “perhaps another time” before Elliott was unceremoniously deposited on the front step. Elliott dared to check the door handle before he returned home. Locked.
Whistling to himself, he strolled through the woods, thinking of new ways to intrude on his muse’s peace.
Eventually, the writing inspiration burned out again. It was only a matter of time, after all, as being a nuisance and intruding on the Wizard's routine was hardly going to suffice for any manuscript of genre fiction length.
Rasmodius grumbled, but continued the book-borrowing arrangement, and Elliott always found the door unlocked whenever he began to run out of reading material. However, there was a new, magical wall and door barricading the way to the workshop. Elliott only tried that brass handle once before Rasmodius’s disembodied voice admonished him with a, “Stop that and get out!”
Well. There was always the pretty woods with the slimes, if he got truly desperate. At any rate, Elliott started leaving small notes and letters in the library, little observations and notes about his manuscript and day-to-day life or the less slimy critters roaming the Cindersap. Perhaps Rasmodius burned every single one without reading them, but each slip of paper had disappeared from the spots where he left them between visits. Elliott’s pining was starting to make him feel like he would likely develop bark and grow needles before long, toad threat or no.
Leah caught him on the way home after his thirteenth visit to the tower, pulling him into her cottage, a mixture of worry and anger creasing her forehead. “Thank Yoba! I was wondering if you were still alive.”
Elliott blinked at her. “Dearest Leah, I’m merely writing and reading books, the same goings-on as usual for this hermetic writer.”
“Hmmmmm,” she said, drawing out the sound in disbelief. “Honestly, Elliott, how could you? You haven’t shown up to the Saloon in weeks and Gus is worried that you aren’t eating. And Gunther says you haven’t visited the Museum at all. So either you’re lying to me, best friend-o, or you’d better have a good explanation for disappearing on me like this.”
Wincing, Elliott showed her the book. He hadn’t meant to distress her, truly, but he’d never written so consistently across all of his thirty-odd years. He had been borrowing books, albeit not the sort the town’s own library had in its catalogue. “A wizard rescued me from the dangers lurking in the deep woods and has permitted my use of his personal shelves.”
“The wizard is real?” Leah paged through the book, as if to reassure herself that it was utterly benign. “Marnie and Jas said so, but I always thought it was like a ghost story or local fairy tale or something.” She side-eyed Elliott, suddenly suspicious. “You aren’t fucking this guy, are you?”
Elliott flushed crimson. “No!” he said, a tad too quickly. “I mean, not that I wouldn’t be amenable to the idea if he expressed interest, but…”
Leah groaned, slapping a hand to her face. “I knew it! I knew you were hiding a new love interest from me. Of fucking course. ‘Writing and reading,’ Yoba’s ass.”
Sinking into the small, overstuffed sofa, Elliott tapped his fingers against the fabric. “Well, I am being truthful about writing, even if my means for inspiration are a bit unorthodox, anyway. And it’s not as though he’s particularly responsive to my overtures. My last flirtation resulted in him quite literally building a wall between us.” He sighed, the soft sound filled with chronic yearning.
“You realize that’s the opposite of a response, right?” Leah poured him a glass of wine and shoved it in his hand. “You need it more than I do, sheesh. You really know how to pick them.”
“I know,” Elliott said dreamily, the wine sweet on his tongue. “The primary conundrum, my dear Leah, is that while I am permitted to read a small selection of his tomes, he seems determined to avoid seeing my person, which won’t do at all. I fear I will lose my muse if he maintains such aloofness.”
Leah sat on the sofa next to him, slinging a leg over her lap. “Welllll,” she said, playing with the tail of her braid. “I’ve never tried to seduce a wizard, admittedly. And we both know I’d prefer a witch, anyhow. But if I were to try to seduce a wizard who kept eluding me, I’d first rule out any chance of him being an evil wizard who plans to use my hot body for ritual sacrifice in the basement—”
“—he’s not evil,” Elliott objected, although he admitted this hunch was based on a combination of instinct and wanting to trust Rasmodius’s own words. However, if he was evil, he’d have surely taken advantage of Elliott’s visits by now and the town would have been none the wiser. She lightly smacked him on the shoulder.
“As I was saying,” Leah continued, “rule out evil wizardry, establish a rapport, which I suppose regular book borrowing counts, and then…”
“Then what?”
She grinned wickedly. “Make him show up and go after that supernatural sexyman like the handsome tiger you are!”
The plan held a certain allure, admittedly. And Elliott hadn’t written more than five hundred words in the past two days, the fact of which was causing him no small amount of psychic damage.
But how to draw a human-avoidant wizard within lip’s reach?
Elliott hiked to the tower the following day, deep in thought about his writing, Rasmodius, and his undeniable attachment to exploring the wizard’s trousers. Or rather, his robes. He distantly heard Rasmodius chanting as he passed the workroom, but instead of stopping to listen, he retraced the downward spiral to the library, feeling similarly downward himself.
If this manuscript remained unfinished, if Elliott’s heart remained inextricably drawn to the most infuriating option it could have selected for sexual (and romantic) attraction, if Rasmodius did actually turn out to be a serial killer who was merely biding his time…
He shook his head, determined to finish his business with books and throw himself at paper and pen again when he returned home. At the very least, he would finish this chapter if it was the last thing he managed.
As he was replacing his borrowed book back into its proper spot, the tower shook in a distinctly oh stars, not now manner that threw Elliott backwards against one of the forbidden shelves, legs and arms scrambling for purchase on a floor that undulated. His hand landed on a carved statue of something small enough for his hand to fully close around it and pull. It rolled from the shelf, as heavy as lead and dragging his entire arm down with it. Down, down, down, expertly pinning his body to the floor.
Oh, frumious fornication, was all Elliott could think, sweating at his feeble attempts to lift the accursedly heavy thing.
“Magnus,” he hollered. “A little assistance, if you please?”
The wizard appeared in a flash, his hat and robe askew. He didn’t bother to adjust them, only scowled down at Elliott in a way that made him strongly hope his hunch had been right about his whole “nonthreatening to non-monsters” oath. If Elliott was turned into a toad, he supposed he'd merrily find a new home with the slimes.
“I thought I told you everything except a single shelf was expressly forbidden. Are you unable to understand explicit instructions, or do you simply have a catastrophic habit of thrusting yourself into the path of avoidable danger?”
“Well, in my defense,” Elliott said, his arm growing alarmingly numb. “I believe I was tossed into that shelf by your magic, dear wizard.” He looked down at himself, finally feeling a bit amused by his own predicament, his hair frightfully messy and his shirtsleeves riding up his arms. “This is not exactly how I envisioned myself on my back for you, by the by.”
Ras—Magnus reddened and huffed, but leaned in to extricate the damnable statue from Elliott’s fingers. His breath ghosted along Elliott’s arm and hair, and Elliott shivered.
He sat up and stretched his muscles, feeling an odd sense of déjà vu from their first meeting in the tower. Magnus watched him with keen interest, and Elliott had the curious idea that something about the other man had shifted, and he felt deeply intrigued to figure out just what, precisely.
Jutting out his chin slightly, he said, “So after weeks of avoiding me, you finally deem it worthwhile when I endanger one of your precious artifacts. Is that it, Magnus?”
Magnus snorted, rolling his eyes. “I prefer to see it as saving a fool from mortal peril for the second time in a season. I prefer you undamaged, though you are pesky and annoying.”
Elliott’s eyebrows shot to his hairline. “‘Undamaged’?” he echoed. “In a ‘defending the weak’ sense, or in a ‘specifically this handsome fellow I see on the regular’ sense?” He rose to his feet, enjoying the way Magnus had to lift his head to look him in the eye. The wizard wasn’t glowering, not precisely, and looked faintly embarrassed. Well, Elliott could work with that.
“I refuse to either confirm nor deny,” Magnus said. But he coughed uncomfortably as Elliott swayed into his personal space.
“Regardless,” Elliott said, tilting Magnus’s chin up. “I think I know the answer, dearest Magnus.” He pressed a gentle kiss to his lips, sweet and intoxicating as wine.
The beard was oiled, as it turned out.
Magus was certainly not the easiest lover Elliott had seduced into bed, but he was certainly one of the more fiendish. Something wild and desperate in the wizard seemed to unlock beyond the usual “fifteen minutes of mostly tasteful kisses and moderate fondling”.
The wizard warped them back to his bedroom, skipping the nonsense of the stairs and the workshop entirely. Elliott would have commented on Magnus’s particular eagerness to roll him under his sheets again, except that his mouth was rather preoccupied with soft kisses sliding into teasing kisses deepening into hard and hungry kisses.
And that wasn’t the only part of them getting hard.
Getting thrown onto the dark coverlet had already awoken Elliott’s cock with a pleasant sort of pressure, but then Magnus had climbed onto him and loosened a part of his outer robe and, Oh, hello there. Elliott teased his trouser-covered length against the growing bulge, smirking at Magnus’s gasp.
“So,” he said, idly tracing the silver-embroidered patterns on the blanket. “About how long have you been distracted from your exceedingly important wizarding work by dastardly thoughts of splaying me out, hmm? Because for me, I’d say it was about two minutes after I awoke in here, but satisfy my curiosity, won’t you?”
Magnus ensnared his mouth in another kiss. It was a rather nice one, all warm and forceful, especially with the way his goatee rubbed against Elliott’s chin. “Spirits,” he breathed, “you’re still chatty even when someone is on top of you.”
“Probably even moreso, I should think,” Elliott said, waggling his eyebrows. “And don’t avoid the question.” Taking pity on how his manly wiles were clearly addling the wizard’s senses, he helped Magnus remove his outer robe and the better part of the next one (wizards truly wore far more robes than was reasonable), using the proximity to settle more kisses on the patches of newly exposed skin around his neck, his wrists.
“...when you, er,” Magnus motioned very obviously to Elliott’s chest. “Well, anyway, that,” he finished, looking anywhere but at Elliott’s face. Or torso.
Elliott idly undid the laces on his shirt. Not that he intentionally had started to wear vintage laced shirts to seduce wizards of uncertain age, but he admitted the aesthetic had certain advantages when proffering himself as bait. “Oh, you mean these?” He started playing with a nipple, wickedly gleeful at the way Magnus’s gaze dragged down, mouth parted and breath sharpening. “Now, if you’re wondering about how I manage a fitness routine on top of all of the writing and bothering of wizards, the answer is—”
He never got to finish the sentence.
Magnus pinned him to the bed, taking a nipple into his mouth, teasing the nub with his teeth and sucking hard. Elliott stopped breathing.
Over the past several weeks, Elliott had frequent thoughts about what it might be like, if Magnus ever took a hint with his overtures. Nothing from his vivid imagination or feverish writing matched the longing that surged out of Magnus and into his very pores and veins through every nibble and lick. Bedding a wizard was less like a wave crashing over his head and more akin to being actively devoured by a beast, all power and ferocity.
It was as if Magnus instinctively knew what Elliott imagined whenever he took himself in hand during the small hours. A cross between a shout and a scream tore out of Elliott’s throat when Magnus bit down on one kiss-reddened pec, and his trousers were becoming increasingly damp with precome. He writhed as his other pec was similarly abused, gasping heavily. But Elliott had a specific inkling about the wizard that had arrested his imagination for the better part of the summer. As much as he enjoyed being at another's mercy on occasion, it was time to turn the tables.
Slotting a leg between Magnus’s, he drew on years of experience to neatly flip the man beneath him, lips quirking at Magnus’s astonished expression. He unfastened the next rune-patterned robe, breath catching at the thin black silk beneath, a twin of the robe Elliott had worn so long ago.
“Naughty wizard, hmm? Dressing me in your most intimate garment, caring for me in your own bed, seducing me with books… all to live out your fantasy of man-handling my bosom?” Elliott dragged his thigh against Magnus’s cock, spotting it slyly peeking out between the folds of fabric. Elliott slipped his shirt over his head, and Magnus’s breath hitched. Leaning over Magnus, close enough that their chests touched, Elliott whispered in his ear, “That’s what you want, don’t you? What you’ve earned for saving me twice? Darling Magnus, I could make you such a good boy.”
Magnus’s cock jumped, thick and wanting between Elliott’s legs. Elliott tangled his fingers in Magnus’s hair and tugged experimentally. Just as with sequestering himself to avoid his burgeoning attraction, the wizard seemed stubbornly determined to hide his responses, every groan and whimper as tightly buttoned-up as his words, all manner of delightful noises suppressed behind his lips.
Elliott refused to allow it.
He stuck a thumb between Magnus’s lips, shivering at the teasing nip of teeth against his skin. Elliott tugged Magnus’s hair again, pulling their faces closer together. He chastely pecked the edge of the wizard’s mouth, rubbing their arousals together and this time, Magnus couldn’t hold back a whine.
“There. You’re so perfect, with all those clever spells and enchantments spilling from your lips.” Running a finger up and down through Magnus’s chest hair, gauging the way he tensed and shuddered under his touch, Elliott added, “I’d listen to you sometimes, you know, from beyond the door. Why hide such a lovely voice away? I’d quite like to know what sorts of things you’d say if you let me ride you from dusk to dawn. Or some other manner of debauchery, perhaps?”
Magnus quivered, straining into Elliott’s touch, mouth gaping, at an apparent loss for words. Well, there were ways to fix that. Elliott cupped him through the thin fabric. “You’re a reserved man, Magnus, but surely not too reserved to tell me what you need.” He squeezed.
The cry he made was magnificent, and Elliott dearly longed to torment him into repetition. Between breaths, Magnus whimpered, “Keep touching me, please.”
Elliott raised a brow, darting a hand beneath the silk to hold Magnus’s length. He quite liked the way it felt, hot and heavy and leaking against his fingers. “I can hardly refuse such a polite request, now can I?” Elliott murmured, gently stroking. He rubbed his erection against the bedspread, and the vision of Magnus trembling beneath him was almost enough to make him come undone himself, although he held a careful thread of restraint, determined to see Magnus unravel first.
Alternating between rough and soothing, Elliott found a rhythm, praising Magnus for every cry and word that escaped him. Magnus seemed lost in his own pleasure, eyes dreamy as they gazed into Elliott’s, quite possibly no longer on this plane of existence, if the stories about what magical persons experienced were true. He increased his pace, eager to follow him there.
Elliott felt his own release tightly winding and surging and pulled Magnus into a fierce kiss, swallowing his rumbling moan. With another shiver, Magnus came all over Elliott’s thigh, with Elliott following closely behind.
For a moment, they lay there, foreheads touching, Elliott feeling alive, sated, and uncomfortably sticky in a way that made him want to suggest a bath for their next round of copulation, except that he was particular about disrupting such tender moments too soon. When he deemed adequate time had passed, he rolled on his side and murmured, “Who says you can’t teach an old wizard new tricks?”
Magnus weakly turned his head to stare. “Really?”
Elliott propped himself up on an elbow, taking another opportunity to brush his fingertips along Magnus’s chest. (For the record, the hair matched everywhere.) “I could do it, you know.”
Magnus squinted at him in suspicion. “Do what, you utter beguilement?”
Beaming innocently, Elliott poked Magnus in his soft middle and said, “Ride you from dusk until dawn, of course. Now that the idea is planted in my head, I’m determined to make you see its potential.”
“You’ll be the death of me,” Magnus groaned, throwing an arm over his face.
“Au contraire, my dear wizard,” Elliott said, snuggling closer to him, “I’ll be your spark.”